Klimt painted the mural for the XIVth exhibition of the Association of Visual Artists Vienna Seccession in 1902 devoted to works focussing on Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Originally placed in the left aisle of the exhibition, the 34m long mural was meant to be a temporary installation however it was carefully removed after the exhibiiton and reinstated on permanent display in 1983.

It represents Wagners interpretation of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, namely thus: The Yearning for Happiness, The Suffering of Weak Humanity, The Knight, who driven by Ambition and Compassion takes on the fight for Happiness (YEAH!), The Hostile Forces of Typhoeus (the horrific baboon with mother of pearl eyes), who is surrounded by his daughters - the three Gorgons - as well as Sickness, Madness, Death, Lasciviousness, Wantonness, Intemperance and Gnawing Grief. Quiet the baddass posse ol’ Typhoseus had. After the maelstrom of the insane baboon and his cohorts, the frieze returns back to more pleasant territory with Happiness finding solace in Poetry depicted here playing the lyre. Then there is the void followed by the Arts where true happiness is found and you get to see a couple making out. Get a room, kids.

Here it is, all 34m (or 9556px) of it, presented sideways for your inconvenience.

Beethoven Freize, Gustav Klimt, 1902

Flickr user, Reciprocity has a series of photograms (photographic images created without a camera) posted that explore the refraction of light through glass and plastic objects. And they are rather nice.

“Twisted Light”

Despite the Flickr community’s (and the photographer’s) bizzarely determined efforts to discover shapes of fish, people and solar events in these images, it is the simple representation of the invisible stresses in glass and plastic, torquing and bending light, that captivates the attention.

“Gathered Light”

“Light Can Be So Complicated”. amen.

“Strange Creatures in a Red Sea”

And finally, ‘Animal Dance’ which bares an uncanny likeness to the Virtual House by Peter Eisenman, and seems an apt tool for examining that project; what with all them virtual forces acting on an object being acualised through projections on transformative surface and all that gear…

“Animal Dance”

+ Previously covered flickr madness from the same dude: Micro World.

++ And Geoff points me to his previous post on the same photograms.

The “Voronoi Shelf” by Marc Newson. Milled from a single piece of Carrara marble:

I think that if this proves anything, it is that it is clear now that it was a mistake build the Beijing Olympic Stadium in steel and that carving the whole thing out a single piece of marble would have, in hindsight, been the correct choice.

(Found by Matt.)

Issue 5 of Mark Magazine is out and has an article I wrote on Durbach Block that covers a bunch of their projects to date. Elsewhere in the mag there is a cool pool in Italy, some copycat architecture in China, a pretty funny interview with a terribly serious Dutch Professor about how no-magazines-are-as-good-as-Archis-and-even-that’s-shit-now, and a whole host of interesting projects you haven’t seen before. So check it out…

This one has a limited audience, so you can ignore it if (a) you are not an architect and (b) not in NSW, Australia. Which leaves approximately two of you….

In which case, if you are still here, then surely I do not need to remind you that the RAIA Chapter Council Elections are upon us. Hell Yes. This year three members of DARCH are running for positions on Chapter Council. They are: Eva-Marie Prineas, Joe Snell, Marcus Trimble. (Click the names for Personal Platforms. No. mission statements)

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A ballot paper may be found downloaded here.
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Over the last 18 months darch has been actively attempting to give the NSW RAIA a shot of life. Amongst other events; Podcasts, Public Forums, a lighting competition and most recently the Pecha Kucha slidenights have all been aimed at generating discussion and involvement among recent graduates and emerging architects.

However in order to effect any real change, we need representation on Chapter Council. And herein lies our problem:

Many of you reading this are not members of the Institute. Fair enough. We understand; the reasons not to join are many, the reasons to join, few. DARCH, of course, wishes to address this, but for now to get things moving:

If you ARE a member, and would like to see a more youthful presence on Chapter Council, then vote Prineas, Snell, Trimble. Like So:

If you are NOT a member:
Firstly, please forward this on to everyone in your office. Walk over to their desk and harrass them. Pretend that this has the magnitude of voting out George Bush or something. Pretend you give a damn.

Secondly, Vote anyway. (Anarchy!) Fill in the form, send it in and hopefully the Institute will get the message that there are a large number of architects and graduates that may not be members but that are still active members of the architecture community.

Thankyou for your time.

There is an hilarious advertisement in the opening pages of this month’s ‘The Monthly‘ for a new apartment in Melbourne going by the name of ‘401 St Kilda Road’. The official website offers no actual information on the building (this real estate page offers a few renders) however the architects, Elenberg Fraser, have an excellent portfolio so my concerns lie with the marketing rather than the architecture itself.

And boy what marketing. And I am not sure that I have ever seen such absurd stuff.

“Chef’s Kitchen” In the old days, this would have been called a “Kitchen”. Somehow, by enclosing the kitchen in a room, it has become a chef’s kitchen. As though breaking the the trend of open plan kitchens in dining rooms is in itself deserving of the hiring of culinary staff. Why not go the whole way and call the third bedroom, the Maid’s Room?

“The Great Room” Great! A room! What exactly makes an open living and dining space into a Great Room? A column placed in the middle? It certainly would make my mayday frolic less outdoorsey.

“Worth every million…” Really? Well, I would hope that what I am buying is worth the money I pay for it… But worth every million? Not just two out of three of them? Gosh, that is value isn’t it? (A quick trip to the website reveals that ‘every million’ starts at 2.7 and goes to 7 +. The plan shown above being for a $3mil apartment.)

The sad thing is that a line of suckers aspiring to a life of endless martinis, duck pancakes and Ring-A-Ring-Rosie parties will buy into this garbage.

Pecha Kucha Vol 02 went without a hitch last November. Unfortunately I missed the whole thing as I was in the air watching Click where Adam Sandler plays an architect who, aside from having a remote control that controls time rather than his sony trinitron, has two kids that help him with his work by making models out of pizza. An altogether less inspiring night of creative wonder than that which took place at the CTA…

The speakers on the night were:

Andrew burns of Neeson Murcutt Architects.

Genevieve Blanchett from Emergency Architects showing the work that the organisation has been undertaking in tsunami affected areas.

Andrew Silke, freelance animator.

Sam Crawford spoke about the work he has been involved with in Malawi.

Christopher Hewson from Eeles Trelease Architects

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Richard Goodwin, sculptor.

Hugo Snell and the Petro Cow Project team from the University of Sydney presented their project for intelligent swarming particles controlled by milk crates.

Ben McCarthy, furniture and industrial design.

Dirk Zimmerman from Studio 505

Okay. Antoinette and I are back from our trek through Italy and Austria (using Vals as a kind of refreshing sorbet) and I thought I would point you all to the flickr page where, by means mysterious, photos from the trip will appear over the next couple of weeks as I sort through them all.